Wli Falls and the Volta Region

And so ventured an English(wo)man, an Irishman, a Frenchman, a German, a Dane and a Canadian lady at 5:00 am to the trotro station. Share taxis were haphazardly parked in seemingly unarranged slots in a dirt arena, lined by hectic market stalls and people busily preparing for the day ahead. We were exceptionally lucky to pile in the back of the 12 seater people carrier to Hohoe and take the back two rows for ourselves. The seats were unusually comfy and the rust was reduced to just a few peeking corners of chair legs.

We were off to the Volta region and a beautiful waterfall at Wli. With the thrill of leaving the city, I barely even noticed the bumpy ride or lamented the fact I wouldn’t be able to nap. A moment of sleep would have meant missing the natural beauty that was emerging on either side of the bus from the city behind us. Suddenly there were farms, luscious mango trees and children playing in front of simply constructed huts.

We changed to a taxi at Hohoe. At Wli we set our things down in a sweet, bright and simple guest house where there were chickens pecking on the lawn outside. Our hike to the waterfalls started through some low-lying mangroves. Our guide was keen to point out the purple pineapples and the trees which grow up and around and slowly suffocate the original dweller. Then we started to ascend. We ascended 500 meters fairly quickly. I was sweating more than ever and was aware that I didn’t feel good. The acid feeling in my throat lingered.

Leonard was talking to me but I couldn’t hear him. I could see dots and a vein in my head was throbbing. I felt a little panicked. I just didn’t really understand how I could have run a triathlon just over three weeks ago and now ascending several hundred meters was making me feel the need to pass out. At 850 meters we reached the top falls. I couldn’t work out if it had been worth it or not, but I enjoyed the sensation of fresh water spray splashing my face and soaking my clothes all the same. We sat down to eat some bananas and peanuts.

The way down was considerably easier, although the use of those muscles turns your legs to jelly. At the bottom was our reward, the huge pool of freshwater that had water coming over the edge at the top of the cliff behind and crashed into the bottom depths. The scene was surrounded by mountains and rocks. We all waded into the water.  Closer to the falls the spray was so intense you couldn't keep your eyes open. After enjoying the swim, everyone scrambled back to shore. I surveyed the scene and then suddenly wondered where Kati was. Several bats circulated around the cliff sides.Then I saw her come out of the waterfall with a tall muscular man.

When they reached us, we exchanged greetings and he introduced himself as a Togolese border guard.
“I like your friend very much”, he announced to Troels, Leonard, Colm and Ivan and requested their permission to take her out to dinner that evening.
Kati interrupted and said, “I have a husband!”
Oh, but that wouldn’t be a problem, he assured her; the husband was very far away… Then he challenged Troels, who is very large, to a press-ups match. He quite quickly and evidently won and retuned to Kati’s side, “now we can go for dinner?”
“Well, I still have a husband, and so it will not be possible”.
Eventually he saw she may have some genuine feeling behind the rejection and turned to me, “You, what about you? Are you married?”
So evidently the second favourite, and finding lying quite difficult, I supposed now was a supreme moment to practice, “Yes, I have a husband”. He turned back to Kati. I was becoming both quite perplexed and full of admiration of her smiling countenance and warm responses as she humoured him. She had this charming smile that reflected the light of the waterfall and lit up the surrounding mountains. By now my brow was lowered, a scowl was surfacing and it took some effort not to burst forth with the following oration, “Enough! Away with you and your parasitic effusions! Return to the Togolese border and harass us no further”. Then the Togolese border guard turned to the men and asked permission to take out both Kati and I. It was time to leave.

That evening we went to a German-owned lodge to eat. The grass was kept trim and a huge dog bounded about the premises begging anyone who’d look at him to play football. The waterfall stretched tall upon the mountain in the background and fell behind some pretty pink and purple flowers. The sun fell and we sat down to an unusually European feast of spaghetti bolognaise and curried sausages.

The next day we took a trotro to a neighbouring village where we had heard there were some caves. The trotro dropped us at the local tourism office. 

The price would be 6 cedi per person for a guide to take us up the hillside to the caves. When the guide arrived, he told us that the price was now 8 cedi. Unable to really protest over what was beyond our control, Leonard and I handed over the incremented amount. When it came to Ivan’s turn to pay, he enquired, ‘is the price still 8 cedi or has it gone up since my friends paid’?

It involved more climbing. Somehow I felt slightly better than the previous day, although climbing in the heat was still taxing. The caves were cool and some involved climbing. The guard showed us where people used to live, sleep and hold conferences in the dark clammy quarters. In one cave, full of bats, we only noticed in Leonard’s picture afterwards, that there was an incredibly large and hairy spider that probably could have snatched the life from any one of us if disturbed.

On the trotro back to Hohoe, the van was filled with so many people that the money collector had to balance outside of the van and hold onto the roof. Kati counted 29 people including babies. We changed to a different vehicle at Hohoe and travelled back to Accra, winding around potholes and avoiding oncoming vehicles. When the bus stopped at the police check-point, ladies selling donuts and spicy yam chips on their heads rushed over, and men holding barbequed giant land-snail kebabs waved them temptingly by the van windows.

The light faded until a curtain of darkness enveloped our tro tro. On the main road, as we were closing in on Accra, our headlamps lit up a pile of people at the roadside. And down the bank I could see there was a car upside down and on its roof. There were flames licking the back seats and I saw to my horror that there were people still inside. The van stopped and we all rushed out. Fifteen people or so were pushing the car until it was righted again and the fire was extinguished.

Our driver hailed his passengers back to the vehicle. As we moved off, we were informed that the driver of the car was dead. And just like that the light is out. We couldn’t help but think about his family and children that had been left behind. It was a morose car that moved its sombre passengers slowly back into the city centre that was still grinding its machine and puffing smoke high into the sky.

The bus driver evidently knew some back roads to avoid traffic, and it was down one of these dark lanes that a group of kids had set a line of rocks across the street and wouldn’t move their barricade until the driver gave them a tip. Eventually he got out and chased them with a stick. The journey had seemed to take a very long time, and from the bus station we took a taxi home and as I got out, I felt released from the car like a butterfly leaving its chrysalis.